Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Australian political journalist Laurie Oakes has claimed that the Prime Minister's Department smeared one of its own ministers by leaking a personal and possibly embarrassing "fact sheet" on him. "I'm interested in this, you see, because I've been fed the same allegations about this minister, and they were fed to me by a Liberal," Oakes said.

The Labor Party has maintained for some time, and deputy opposition leader Julia Gillard reiterated, that the Government runs a "dirt unit" where they use public funds to dig up personal information in an attempt to harm politicians and members of the public whom they disagree with.

A report in News Ltd papers on Sunday said the "fact sheet" claims the unnamed Liberal Party Minister, who is married with children, sexually harasses other males in political circles and is rumoured to be sleeping with one of his staff members in Canberra.

Veteran political journalist from the Nine Network Laurie Oakes says the Liberal Party is behind the "fact sheet" about a Howard Government minister who visits gay bathhouses and harasses other men.

News Ltd journalist Glenn Milne's report on the gay accusations said the fact sheet on the minister was not being circulated by the Labor Party. According to Crikey “Glenn Milne got his gay smears documents from the Prime Minister’s press secretary Tony O’Leary, who was hawking it about as an example of "Labor dirt".”